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Angels and Ministers of Grace: Apollonia
St. Apollonia of Alexandria (February 9) is said to cure toothache and all diseases of the teeth, the reason for this being that at her martyrdom all her beautiful teeth were pulled out. In a similar way St. Agatha, of Catania or Palermo, in Sicily, is endowed with the power to cure diseases of the breast, because it is related that before her martyrdom her breasts were cruelly torn and mutilated.
To recite the formula of St. Apollonia was considered by the Spaniards of three centuries ago to be a cure for toothache. This fact is brought out by a passage in Don Quixote, when the knight's housekeeper is urged to recite it for her master's benefit when he is ailing. To this request the woman quickly answers: "That might do something if my master's distemper lay in his teeth, but, alas! it lies in his brain." This formula was probably used before the age of Cervantes, and has persisted to our own time. It is in verse and has been literally translated into English as follows:
Apollonia was at the gate of Heaven and the Virgin Mary passed that way. "Say, Apollonia, what are you about?" "My Lady, I neither sleep nor watch, I am dying with a pain in my teeth." "By the star of Venus and the setting sun, by the Most Holy Sacrament, which I bore in my womb, may no pain in your tooth, neither front nor back, afflict you from this time henceforward." Of Santa Lucia (December 13), born in Syracuse on the island of Sicily, a strange legend is told. A young man fell passionately in love with her, and wrote to her that her wonderful eyes pursued him even in his dreams. Moved by the Scripture text, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out," and longing to save the youth from sensual passion, Lucia cut out her beautiful eyes, placed them on a dish, and sent them to her lover with the following message: "Here thou hast what thou so ardently desirest; I beseech thee leave me in peace." Very naturally, this saint is believed to cure all diseases of the eye. For protection against highway robbers and thieves, St. Nicholas (December 6), Bishop of Myra, in Lycia, was invoked. Legend relates of this saint that he restored to life three boys who had been murdered at an inn by the wicked innkeeper, a wretch who was in the habit of making away with his guests and then utilizing their bodies to enrich his menu. This tale accounts for the fact that, under the familiar name of Santa Claus, St. Nicholas is the patronsaint of children.
St. Barbara (December 4), born in Heliopolis, is appealed to for protection against lightning and injury by firearms. For this reason the gun-room on a ship is called in French the sainte-barbe. The legend, as usual, gives us the origin of the belief in the saint's special powers, for her heathen father is said to have been killed by a stroke of lightning, because of his having denounced his daughter, as a Christian, to the Roman authorities, and then executed judgment upon her with his own hands. Of St. Barbara the legend says: "She was a fair fruit from an evil tree."
Beneath portraits or images of St. Christopher (July 25) there often appears a Latin verse to the effect that whoever gazes on the image will not suffer from faintness or exhaustion on that day. As the saint is said to have been of great size and strength, the worshipper at his shrine was believed to acquire some of his physical power.
The cure of diseases of the tongue was the province of St. Catherine of Alexandria (November 25), who was famed for her eloquence as well as for her devotion to the study of the Scriptures.
St. Roch, who was born in Montpelier toward the end of the thirteenth century (d. August 16, 1327), is regarded as the special guardian of those afflicted with plague or pestilence. In his lifetime he went from place to place ministering to those who suffered from the plague until finally he himself succumbed to this malady. So great was the repute of St. Roch's curative powers that the Venetians are said to have stolen his body from Montpelier, where it was interred, and transported it to Venice, that they might have everpresent help in the numerous pestilences from which this city suffered, because of the constant commercial intercourse with the East. Another saint who was invoked for help in plague and pestilence was St. Sebastian (January 20), born in Narbonne in Gaul. In this case the story of the saint's martyrdom gave rise to the belief in his curative powers, for the legend tells us that he was transfixed with arrows, and these missiles were regarded as symbols of the plague. We have an illustration of this old belief in the first book of Homer's Iliad, where the pestilence that visited the army of the Greeks is represented as due to the shafts sped from Apollo's silver bow.
Although no curative powers are attributed to them, no one of English speech should forget SS. Crispin and Crispian, on whose day the battle of Agincourt was fought, in 1415. The old feud between France and England has been long forgotten, the rivalry between these nations has given place to a close friendship, and there is no trace of animosity in the glow that warms an Englishman's heart when he reads the ringing words put by Shakespeare into the mouth of Henry V:
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered.